or at least why you should be very - and I sincerely mean VERY - aware about what you're actually buying.
Let's make things clear from the start: I love Moleskine's agendas, notebooks, scrapbooks and all their items. I like the quality, the shape, the style, the simple and elegant black leather and the special edition items. I simplylove the elastic band that closes almost all of their books and I'm still saving old Moleskine's agendas as real diaries.
The notebook itself I'm writing down my ideas for the blog is a Moleskine.
For Xmas I received Moleskine presents: not one, not two, but three of them!
I also happened to buy other brands similar items: just as an example from Ordning&Reda. Their products are also so incredibly good and stylish, but to me Moleskine has always been a bit more special. Something that you'll always be right about. And that's why, for the last Xmas, when I had to think of a special present for the family I thought "let's get a Moleskine photo-book!".
As you can imagine, and as you already know, there are thousands of websites where you can create and order your own photo-books. The principle is easy: you put the pictures, you chose how to present them in the book, you add the text and the printing company just prints it and ships it wherever you need it.
Moleskine's looked immediately a bit more pricy than other solutions available on the internet, but camon, it's Moleskine! You know you're falling on your feet when you chose it! No surprises, just pure quality and style!
Well, actually there were a loooot of surprises: normally you (1) create an account on some service website, then (2) you play around a bit with layouts and pictures, (3) you create the book you want and finally (4) you pay for the check-out and (5) wait for the delivery. That's what happens usually on any photo-book website. Not with Moleskine.
No, because in this specific case you start with point 1 and 4 - and sincerely I fear that my memory is playing me a bit, but I've a feeling that point 4 came first...
Payment is via PayPal, so no big fears to be fooled, at least.
Then what you realize is that what you've just paid for is not the book, but a voucher -that takes few hours to be electronically delivered to you by e-mail- you'll use for paying a photo-book of your choice on Milkbooks!
Still, fine, no big issue....
Then point 3, right the way: you play around while making your book.
Honestly I found myself in a pretty tricky situation not for selecting the pictures but mainly for the texts: the final solution was typing here and there few words, but I know that I should have written much more.
The real pain? There are only few and very limited layouts for arranging your pics in the pages: I really wanted a double page picture, but no way.... I have several panoramic landscapes but the only allowed format is 4:3. It was also very difficult to find a good compromise with the combination of vertical and horizontal images. In addition to that the browser-based interface to be used for the creation crashed several times: on the other hand an auto-save routine didn't make me go crazy.
The reality is that I found myself on the point of giving up and referring to another photo-book creation site but, do you remember point 4 that came much earlier in the story timeline?! And, let's face it, it wasn't a "small" amount of money you'd feel to leave behind without getting what you paid for.....
So, I arrived at the end of point 3 and, surprise! Another point 4: on one side I wanted two copies of the book and the voucher was for only one, so nothing to complain about, but on the other side the few additional pages I added to the basic ones cost me exactly like the initial amount! So, just at that point, the amount of money I thought I would have spent was simply doubled!
Fine with me, it's good stuff, I want it and I added additional pages so i had to pay more.
So I just check out (point 4) and wait 10 days for delivery (point 5).
Another surprise: 10 days for "delivery" were actually for printing! No big issue, we're in 2013 so a parcel can get around the world in 24hours or so... no! 10 working days!
I thne started counting, and for my luck the 10th working day was on 23rd December, just on time for Xmas celebration.
But the real last surprise still had to come: the book was actually printed in Hon-Kong, and shipped to Sweden. When delivered I got a funny 170SEK bill (roughly 18€ at the time of payment) to pay for import taxes!
Ok, it's Xmas, we're all nicer and kinder....
The Xmas day comes and I give the presents: I was actually more curious to see the final result then the people who actually get the present!
From the outside: very nice black smooth fake lather with the traditional elastic band to keep everything in place.
Inside: light paper pages, a bit washed out colors and much lower contrast than expected. Some pictures turned out almost completely black even thought they were more than perfect when printed on other paper....
So, finally, who got the present was more than happy for it, mainly for the content and the general form. Lucky they're not so picky when it comes down to picture and printed photos like me and they just enjoyed the present.
The only thing I want to warn you about is to be really very sure that a Moleskine photo-book is what you really want before starting the whole process, and pay for the whole amount of money that is required....
And you, did you have ever had such an experience?
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